Recently, voice-based digital assistants, such as Apple's SIRI, Amazon's Echo, Google's Google Assistant, and Microsoft's Cortana, have been introduced into the marketplace to handle various tasks such as home appliance controls, web search, calendaring, reminders, etc. One advantage of such voice-based digital assistants is that users can interact with a device in a hands-free manner without handling or even looking at the device. Conventionally, to initiate the voice-based assistant, users can press a button or select an icon on a touch screen on a central control device (e.g., a smartphone, or a central communication hub), or speak a trigger phase (e.g., a predefined wake-up word or command) to the central control device. The voice-based digital assistant interprets the voice command it receives after it has been activated, and performs an action (e.g., providing an informational answer and/or sending an encoded instruction to control a peripheral device, such as an appliance in a smart home environment).
Controlling multiple devices using a voice-based user interface on a central control device pose many limitations. For example, the user must be within reach of the central control device at all times in order to activate the digital assistant (e.g., by pressing a button on the central control device or speaking the wake-up word to the central control device). The central control device is expensive, and it is difficult and costly to manufacture and maintain. Even when multiple central control devices are used, their actions are independent of one another and may conflict with one another.
Thus, it would be beneficial to provide a way to improve the way that multiple devices are controlled by a digital assistant using a voice-based user interface.